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I don’t want to be anything special. I only want to try to be true to that in me which seeks to fulfill its promise.
Etty Hillesum -
Sometimes I feel that every word spoken and every gesture made merely serve to exacerbate misunderstandings. Then what I would really like is to escape into a great silence and impose that silence on everyone else.
Etty Hillesum
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I feel like a small battlefield in which the problems, or some of the problems, of our time are being fought out. All one can hope to do is keep oneself humbly available, to allow oneself to be a battlefield. After all, the problems must be accommodated, have somewhere to struggle and come to rest and we, poor little humans, must put our inner space at their service and not run away.
Etty Hillesum -
Thinking gets you nowhere. It may be a fine and noble aid in academic studies, but you can't think your way out of emotional difficulties. That takes something altogether different. You have to make yourself passive then, and just listen. Re-establish contact with a slice of eternity.
Etty Hillesum -
The more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
Etty Hillesum -
I don't think I have nerves of steel, far from it, but I can certainly stand up to things. I am not afraid to look suffering straight in the eyes.
Etty Hillesum -
I do believe it is possible to create, even without ever writing a word or painting a picture, by simply molding one’s inner life. And that too is a deed.
Etty Hillesum -
A large group of us were crowded into the Gestapo hall, and at that moment the circumstances of all our lives were the same. All of us occupied the same space, the men behind the desk no less than those about to be questioned. What distinguished each of us was only our inner attitude.
Etty Hillesum
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One must also accept that one has 'uncreative' moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass.
Etty Hillesum -
Every day I shall put my papers in order and every day I shall say farewell. And the real farewell, when it comes, will only be a small outward confirmation of what has been accomplished within me from day to day.
Etty Hillesum -
Here, beside this great black surface that is my desk, I feel as though I am on a desert island.
Etty Hillesum -
If one finds the strength to deal with small things, one finds it to deal with the large ones as well.
Etty Hillesum